what are my options to buy a four-plex without doing a refi or something on my existing properties. is this a stupid question?

Account Closed  not trying to scare him... the fact is in many states a loan on a SFR 1 to 4 units regardless if its for business purposes or to an LLC and regardless if the lender is accredited or not requires a NMLS licensed mortgage broker to handle the transaction and unless the Portal is licensed in that state or has retained a broker in that state to handle the transaction if a lender just goes direct and makes more than two loans ( 2 loans are usually excluded in most states as mom and pop and not in the business) there needs to be  NMLS broker somewhere in the transaction and licensed in the state..

The lien on the house still exists.  

@Matt Sherman what's the rate on the existing mortgage?  

Once you've done that, you confer with an attorney experienced in real estate syndication, and retain him.

Acquisition phase, maintenance phase, disposition phase (if I'm remembering the terms for the 3 parts of the cycle correctly).If you're early on in career and looking to increase portfolio, should cash out and buy more with relatively high leverage (while being sure to have solid cash reserves on the side of course).If you're middle career and looking to just maintain portfolio and don't need cash flow from properties, then focusing on building equity in existing properties by using cash flow to pay down loans make sense.Then end career dispose of assets and the sweet equity you hopefully built up by selling outright or owner carry or whatever.I personally would cash out and buy more with leverage, but that's someone in acquisition mode bucket talking.

Do you have any study tips that might help me retain all this info? 

Also, if that did exist, it most likely wouldn't help sell your property, just look at YouTube comments, typically negative. 

I did not actually know this existed.

Sketchy people exist everywhere, it's up to the individual to define what is sketchy in their eyes.